Nightwish

I got an email 2 weeks ago from a good friend of mine from high school telling me that a favorite band of his was coming to Portland, and that he was making plans to come visit and go to the show. I told him that I could probably get us tickets, and that he was welcome at my place for as long as he wanted. Well, I was able to get us into the show, and it was a blast. It was a band called Nightwish, a Swedish power metal band that mixed amped metal chords with a melodic opera style vocal. I knew nothing about this band, but apparently in their genre they are a big deal. I realized this when we arrived to a giant crowd at the Roseland, something I wasn’t expecting at all. We caught the last 2 songs of the opener Sonata Arctica and then made our way through the crowd during the set break. We ran into a couple of kids in town from Forest Grove (a 2 hour bus ride from Portland) to see the Swedes. When Nightwish came out they did so in fashion; all the flashy 90’s laser lights and dramatic intro music that I had imagined when listening to their album the day before. I was able to shoot some good video of the group. The lead singer Annette came up to the edge of the stage and sang directly into my camera at one point, and then the keyboardist came to the edge of the stage and handed me his beer. I drank it in proper “crazy fan” style as if the fact that it had been his beer made it taste like Hawaiian Punch. I promptly threw the empty cup into the security pit only to receive a giant cheer from the fans immediately surrounding me. At the end of the show I was lucky enough to catch the bassists’ pick to give to my good friend Dan, and he was nothing but excited. Of course his mind was elsewhere as I came to the back of the house only to see him sucking face with the Forest Grove girl. HAHAHA.

Nightwish from Aaron Nicholls on Vimeo.